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Introduction: The Writer and Indian English Canon

Arun Joshi (1939-1993) was born in an academic environment as his father, the botanist A. C. Joshi served as the vice-chancellor of two leading Indian universities, namely, Punjab and Banaras Hindu University (Randhawa). Joshi was himself academically oriented holding a Master’s degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA.  After completing his education, he returned to India and joined the Shri Ram Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, a Delhi-based NGO and served as its Executive Director until his death on April 19, 1993 (Indian Journal of Industrial Relations).

Despite having a prolific writing career publishing five novels and a collection of short stories, Arun Joshi has remained an elusive figure in the canon of Indian fiction in English. Alongside his career as the Head of the research institute and as a journal editor, Joshi successfully managed another career as a writer. His skillful prose brings out the thematic complexity of his fiction which explores issues like inequalities in the Indian social structure, moral decadence, the futility of materialistic pursuits, the conflict between individual desire and societal repression, the crisis of enlightenment, and how a foreboding sense of alienation preoccupies the human subject. Joshi was also a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi award in 1982 for his novel The Last Labyrinth (1981). Nevertheless, he continues to be undervalued, both in the literary marketplace and in academic circles despite his significant contribution to Indian Writing in English, which leads Pavan Kumar Malreddy to question: “How do we explain this glaring discrepancy between the prolific output on Joshi’s literary oeuvre and his almost neglected place in the pantheon of the postcolonial canon?” (3-4).

One possible reason for the obscurity of Arun Joshi’s fiction could be its unavailability. His works remained “out of print” (Sudarshan 2013) until a decade ago when his Delhi-based publisher, Orient Paperbacks, republished some of his works under their venture called, “Library of South Asian Literature.” Joshi’s fictional world, which was otherwise confined to the dusty shelves of old Indian libraries, has now been rediscovered by an entirely new generation and a global audience with the reprinting and availability of e-copies. Joshi’s early death at the age of 54 and his books not being marketed outside the subcontinent even when international publishers had entered the Indian literary market (Sudarshan 2013) are some of the contributing factors for the cultural amnesia that he has suffered.

The struggle to situate Arun Joshi within the corpus of Indian English Literature is a real one since his subject-matter is unlike any of his peers. According to Madhusudan Prasad, Joshi’s fiction is “singularized by certain existentialist problems and the resultant anguish, agony, psychic quest, and the like” (103). His fiction evidently draws influence from twentieth-century Western philosophers like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre who question the existence of God and the purpose of human existence. Generally labeled as “existentialists,” a term which many writers so categorised have invariably rejected, their literature demonstrates the individual trapped in a crisis of identity as seen in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1916), breakdown of language and selfhood in Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot (1952), and the absence of God and the absurdity of life in Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) and The Stranger (1942). The philosophical issues explored in Arun Joshi’s fiction bear close resemblance to existentialist philosophy to the extent that critics have interpreted Joshi’s first novel The Foreigner (1968) as inspired by Albert Camus’s 1942 novel The Stranger (Prasad 104). Similarly, O. P. Mathur interprets the protagonist of The Foreigner (1968), Sindi Oberoi, as a “Sartrean protagonist” who embodies the journey from alienation and detachment to “right and useful action” (425). The influence of Western philosophy on Joshi’s fiction has also contributed to creating a disconnect between him and the Indian English canon.

Arun Joshi’s literary vision has made it difficult to label him a quintessentially “Indian” writer particularly since, in the early years, the formation of the Indian English canon was mainly developed upon the idea of how it was lending a voice to the postcolonial nation state. As such, Joshi is either canonised as a divergent voice in the various histories and anthologies of Indian Writing in English, or else his “Indian sensibility” is overdetermined to fit him neatly in the field. For instance Meenakshi Mukherjee interprets Joshi’s first novel The Foreigner (1968) within the framework of the “East-West” (207) cultural encounter and reads its sense of alienation through the lens of cultural difference and an individual’s sense of conflict. M.K. Naik’s A History of Indian English Literature (1982) offers a comprehensive critical account of Joshi’s novels and identifies him as one of the “most striking” (270) voices of the seventies. In Naik’s words, “Joshi is a novelist seriously interested in existential dilemmas and equally acutely aware of both the problems of post-Independence Indian society and the implications of the East-West encounter” (292). Naik clubs the psychological and intellectual struggles of Joshi’s flawed protagonists into an “East vs West” debate in order to affirm their postcolonial ethos. Joshi’s fiction, however, refuses convenient labels: neither could it be categorised as “existentialist” literature alone, which is imitative of western philosophy, nor could its subject be reduced to a cultural clash between eastern “tradition” and western “modernity.” If there is anything substantial that one can conclude from Joshi’s representation of the conflict between the ‘modern’ and the ‘traditional’ worlds, the individual and the society, the body and the mind, and desire and its repression, it is that he does not perceive these categories as antithetical. Instead, he intertwines these seemingly opposing worldviews to reflect upon metaphysical questions pertaining to life and its meaning.

The Politics of Joshi’s Fiction

Arun Joshi’s writing has focused on the individual psyche, its struggles and the pretentious world of the Indian elites without manifestly engaging with larger events like the Indian independence and the social ills plaguing the postcolonial nation state, concerns which have been crucial in defining and shaping the canon of Indian Writing in English. Furthermore, because of Joshi’s metaphysical inquiries into life’s meaning, subjecthood, and the alienating effects of modernity, the socio-political aspects of his narrative also tend to get overlooked in the overarching frame of the individual’s quest for meaning. For instance, the crisis of selfhood plaguing Joshi’s fatalistic protagonists, and the attempts to resolve it, cannot be separated from their male privilege and their upper-class, upper-caste background. His fiction often centers around a privileged male subject who feels alienated despite having all the comforts. However, the novels do not simply serve as  mouthpieces to these flawed protagonists but remain critical of their worldview and ideologies. As Joshi focusses on the psychological instead of the manifestly political, he remains critical of upper-class values and culture.

In The Strange Case of Billy Biswas (1971), tribal culture exists as an antithesis to the modern society and is romanticised in order to strike a contrast with the culture of big Indian cities. Makarand Paranjape draws a parallel between Joshi’s novel and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1899) to comment on how the former is a “Conradesque journey into the heart of the Indian darkness” (1052). For instance, Billy’s position within the tribal group can be compared to Kurtz’s relationship with the African natives especially in terms of his God-like status among the tribes. However, the comparison also ends there as Billy is completely integrated into the tribal culture without showing any moral superiority for his own civilisational values. The novel, therefore, privileges indigenous knowledge but only to contrast and critique the world inhabited by the urban  elite.

The connection between the protagonist’s quest for identity and his own caste and class privilege is also present in The Last Labyrinth (1981). Som Bhaskar’s existentialist dilemma is tied to his caste identity as a Brahmin millionaire. The question that Anuradha poses to Som Bhaskar towards the beginning of the novel, “What is a Bhaskar doing in business?” (Joshi, The Last Labyrinth 11) implicitly links his spiritual crisis with the quest for transcendence that is associated with his identity as a Brahmin man. Som Bhaskar is a millionaire who despite his successful business and relationships suffers from an inexplicable cry, “I want. I want.” (Joshi The Last Labyrinth 9). This unquenchable desire not only takes him to Banaras but also to a Krishna temple in the mountains that leads him to the spiritual awakening of how Anuradha miraculously saved his life when the doctors had given up faith. The manner in which the novel upholds the unknown, mysterious elements of life makes it difficult to separate Bhaskar’s spiritual crisis with his Brahmin identity.

Joshi’s existentialist fiction, therefore, appears as a world occupied by upper-class/upper-caste men who are oblivious to their caste and cultural privilege, which seems to be a major limitation in his writings. However, it is their relinquishment of material comfort and privileges that leads to meaningful insights over individual freedom, morality, the crisis of selfhood, and societal expectations. While this is overtly manifested in The Strange Case of Billy Biswas (1971) as Billy abandons Delhi to search for greater truths in the expanse of the forests, The Last Labyrinth too explores the idea of renouncing metropolitan life to find comfort in the old world order epitomised by the Lal Haveli in Banaras. Even The Apprentice (1974) – which follows a different trajectory since the protagonist, Ratan Rathor, belongs to a humble background – explores the idea of repentance for one’s wrongdoings by indulging in good deeds. Ratan Rathor’s dramatic monologue which narrates his rags-to-riches story comes to an end with his confession of becoming the almighty’s “apprentice” by visiting the temple daily to “wipe the shoes of the congregation” (Joshi, The Apprentice Chap. 12). Given the unreliability of Rathor’s story, it is doubtful if he has truly mended his ways after clearing the defective order which cost him the life of his close friend, the Brigadier. However, The Apprentice (1974) also manages to tease the other possibility of Rathor seeking redemption by rising above his greed for material comforts. Hence, Arun Joshi’s anti-heroes question and critique the world of privileges, its corrupt value system, and the social divide it perpetuates.

The City and the River (1990) is distinctive when compared with Joshi’s other works which are thematically centered around an alienated subject. This allegorical tale, recounted by the Great Yogeshwara to his disciple, the Nameless One, shows the power struggle between politicians and citizens, law enforcers and law abiders, and the haves and the have-nots respectively. The tussle between the Grandmaster and the scheming Astrologer on one side and the underprivileged like “the mud people” and “the boatmen” on the other, is symbolic of class struggle as the Grandmaster dictates and commands without any consideration for the needs of the masses. However, this is not a simplistic tale of conflict between the ruling class and the working class, as Nirmala Menon tellingly reminds us how the novel critiques “both social institutions and its subjects” (74). She argues that the novel allegorically refers to the Indian Emergency (1975-1977) whether it is through the usage of the phrase “‘The Era of Ultimate Greatness’” or the “mass arrests” that are carried out in the text (Menon 74). Furthermore, the policy of “one child to a mother or two to a home” enforced by the Grandmaster suggests the two-child policy and mass sterilisation that was promoted during the Emergency (Joshi, The City Chap. 1). The City and the River (1990) is a political text which connects politics to philosophical enquiry. Unlike Joshi’s other novels which are centered around the psychology of the individual, The City and the River (1990) focusses on the “politics of collective” (Menon 65).

Beyond Dualisms

As argued previously, Arun Joshi’s fiction cannot be interpreted solely in terms of binaries like “East vs West,” “tradition vs modernity,” and “individual vs society,” as his novels challenge such dualisms to show their interconnections. For instance, Joshi’s first novel, The Foreigner (1968), demonstrates the lonely world occupied by the anti-hero, Sindi Oberoi, who despite his multiracial background feels like a “foreigner” in whichever country he goes to. According to Madhusudan Prasad, the novel “relates the pathetic story of its narrator, Sindi Oberoi, who reflects helplessly on his meaningless past and is apprehensive of his equally meaningless future” (104). Born to an interracial couple, an English mother and an Indian father, Sindi lost his parents at an early age and was brought up by his “uncle in Kenya” (Joshi, The Foreigner Chap. 2). His education was also “global” as he studied in East Africa, London, and the United States (Joshi, The Foreigner Chap. 3). Sindi’s character embodies what Homi K. Bhabha has termed “cultural hybridity” (6). However, instead of accepting and acknowledging his multicultural background, he fails to belong to either Kenya, America, or to his Indian origins. Sindi’s “in-between” identity and his life’s philosophy of detachment alienate him from the world-at-large. (Bhabha 2).

In not belonging completely to any particular country or race, Sindi Oberoi is not uprooted and detached as he would like to convince himself, but his existence lies between cultures and spaces such that he could belong anywhere in the world: a message which he learns only by the end of the novel when he has already lost Babu Rao Khemka and June Blyth because of his philosophy to “live without desire and attachment” (Joshi, The Foreigner Chap. 11). Sindi’s absolute belief in non-commitment and inaction was a ruse for self-preservation and it is only by the end of the novel that he realises this truth when an office employee, Muthu, shares his own understanding of detachment: “Sometimes detachment lies in actually getting involved” (Joshi, The Foreigner Chap. 18). Seen in this context, Sindi’s decision to stay back and manage Mr. Khemka’s business for the sake of the employees is intellectually enlightening for him as he arrives at a pluralistic sense of modernity which values action. After losing Babu Rao Khemka and June Blyth, Sindi realises that “detachment consisted of right action and not escape from it” (Joshi, The Foreigner Chap. 15). His modernist angst, which was founded upon loneliness and a crisis of faith, finds a temporary resolution towards the novel’s end as he recognises an alternative worldview where attachment and detachment are not mutually exclusive.

Similarly, interpreting The Foreigner (1968) in terms of the conflict of “East vs West” is far too simplistic, as the novel does not privilege one set of cultural values over the other. The two characters who symbolise the eastern and western civilisations – Babu Rao Khemka and June Blyth respectively – struggle to survive because of their absolute values, not to mention Sindi’s “withdrawing” attitude (Prasad 104). In the character of Sindi Oberoi, the novel brings together “eastern” and “western” values to uphold a pluralistic culture. As Sindi, the rootless, alienated protagonist starts running Mr. Khemka’s business, the novel challenges his bad faith to uphold a vision of modernity that does not demand a transcendence from the material world but a willful engagement with it.

Joshi’s second novel The Strange Case of Billy Biswas (1971) also disputes the purpose of existence, enlightenment, and the apparent progress of human civilisation by portraying the eccentric life of Billy Biswas. Billy Biswas was an Indian anthropologist trained in the United States and working with Delhi University, who withdraws from the elite circles of his Delhi household to settle among a tribal group, the “bhils of the Satpura Hills” (Joshi, The Strange Case 7). The novel critiques the normative modernity of English-speaking urban elites and their demand for social conformity as it tragically recounts the fate of Billy Biswas who is hunted down and eventually killed when his family attempts to reclaim him from his tribal life.

Recounted through the perception of the second-person narrator, Romi Sahai, a civil servant who befriended Billy in New York, the novel reflects on the social rebellion of Billy Biswas against the upper-class Indian society and its understanding of development, culture, and modernity. By contrasting the enriching lives led by the tribal groups against the materialistic, civilised world of metropolitan spaces, Joshi explores the divide between nature and culture, rural and urban spaces, indigeneity and modernity, and theory and praxis. Billy’s decision to assimilate himself within the local tribe and abandon his family serves as a comment not only on his passion for the unknown mysteries of life but also on his willingness to bridge the intellectual gap by privileging indigenous knowledge structures which the civilised world may frown upon.

Billy Biswas could be considered a misfit in the society as he recklessly leaves behind his entire family by disappearing into the woods. However, his unreasonable, self-serving quest for meaning that drives him to withdraw from civilisation is also a greater search for “one’s true self” (Mathur 426). In his first encounter with the tribes and their festivities, Billy Biswas feels a connection and a calling to be his “primitive self” (Joshi, The Strange Case 101):

He stood on a rock and saw in the night sky a reality that blinded him with its elemental ferocity. It was as though his life had been reduced to those elements with which we all begin when we are born. (Joshi The Strange Case 102).

This meeting with the tribe awakens something primordial in Billy since the tribe stood in stark contrast to the sophisticated world from which he had arrived. In order to contrast the world of the city as egotistical and predetermined by social pretensions and material worth, Arun Joshi romanticises tribal life through the character of Billy, by privileging their legends and myths, without dealing with them critically. By contrasting the culture of the city with tribal life, the novel critiques the superficiality of the modern Indian society. In this process it touches upon elements that remain questionable from a representative point of view, such as Billy’s god-like stature among the tribes and the overt sexualisation of Bilasia who is meant to symbolize feminine energy. The novel uses such problematic elements to provide answers to philosophical questions that had haunted Billy as an academic and which he only understood once he acquired alternative knowledge by living with the tribes. The novel synthesises western enlightenment and indigenous knowledge structures, reason and myths in the character of Billy whose pursuit of anthropology as a field of study led him to deeper inquiries which he could only comprehend after annihilating his “modern,” urban self. Although the novel’s engagement with tribal culture stems from its desire to interrogate urban Indian culture, it, nevertheless, ends up broadening the meaning of culture and modernity by privileging cultural differences that may otherwise be conveniently disregarded as primitive.

The Last Labyrinth (1981) explores a married business tycoon, Som Bhaskar’s obsession with a woman named Anuradha through whom he wants to conquer his unquenchable thirst for wanting more. By overlapping the desire for material possession (Aftab’s shares) with the immaterial like spiritual fulfillment, sexual bliss, love and transcendence, Joshi synthesises opposing elements to comment on the inherent contradictions in human desire. The novel begins with Som Bhaskar’s desire to capture Aftab’s business which he eventually obtains but without contentment, and ends with an unsatisfied Som, who is scared and on the verge of self-harm, as Anuradha has disappeared from his life. The novel concludes in an open-ended manner, as it is unclear whether Anuradha has willingly gone missing or has been subject to violence within the mysterious folds of the labyrinthine Haveli. In the Som-Anuradha relationship, social conventions are flouted to establish a connection between the known and the unknown, the spiritual and the sexual, and the body and the mind respectively. For example, Som Bhaskar’s physical fixation with Anuradha attains a mystical dimension when he gains the knowledge that Anuradha saved him from dying because of their “spiritual” connection. Similarly, in Anuradha’s disappearance, the novel seems to point to the unknown, mysterious elements of human desire which can never be understood fully.

Conclusion

From critiquing the upper-class of the Indian society to the quest for meaning in an absurd world, Joshi’s anti-heroes embody the modern dilemma to both belong and transcend the world. Whether it is through material possessions, sexual bliss, intellectual pursuits, detachment, or even religious devotion, his nonconformist characters are not just meant to demonstrate the wrongs of the society. Instead, they are intended to challenge the fundamental premise of human civilisation. From Billy Biswas abandoning the civilised spaces of Delhi to live amidst tribal groups to Sindi Oberoi’s theory of detachment in The Foreigner (1968), to Som Bhaskar’s sexual and spiritual obsession with Anuradha and the maze-like structure of Lal Haveli in Banaras, which preserves an older world, in The Last Labyrinth (1981), Joshi’s preoccupation lies with metaphysical enquiries which he addresses by exploring the limits of human reason, faith, morality, desire, and sexuality. Undoubtedly, Joshi’s philosophical engagement is not apolitical since most of his protagonists come from privileged backgrounds, except for Ratan Rathor in The Apprentice (1974) who represents the common man’s struggles to “arrive” in the city. Nevertheless, Joshi remains vehemently critical of the social class he represents. It can be argued that Romi Sahai, the narrator in The Strange Case of Billy Biswas (1971) serves as the author’s mouthpiece when he says how “life’s meaning lies not in the glossy surfaces of our pretensions, but in those dark mossy labyrinths of the soul that languish forever […]” (8). Joshi’s fiction explores the psychological realms of this world which otherwise lie buried within the human subject.

Bibliography:

Joshi, Arun. The Apprentice. Orient Paperbacks, 1974.

—. The City and the River. Orient Paperbacks, 1990.

—. The Foreigner. Orient Paperbacks, 1968.

—. The Last Labyrinth. Orient Paperbacks, 1981.

—. The Strange Case of Billy Biswas. Orient Paperbacks, 1971.

Works Cited:

“Arun Joshi.” Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 28, no. 4, 1993. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27767266 . Accessed 12 July 2023.

Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. Routledge, 1994.

Joshi, Arun. The Apprentice. Orient Paperbacks, 1974.

—. The City and the River. Orient Paperbacks, 1990.

—. The Foreigner. Orient Paperbacks, 1968.

—. The Last Labyrinth. Orient Paperbacks, 1981.

—. The Strange Case of Billy Biswas. Orient Paperbacks, 1971.

Malreddy, Pavan Kumar. “Arun Joshi: Avant-Garde, Existentialism and the West.” Zeitschrift fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik, vol. 62, no. 1, 2014, pp. 3-12. https://doi.org/10.1515/zaa-2014-0002 .

Mathur, OP. “Survival and Affirmation in Arun Joshi’s Novels.” World Literature Today, vol.63, no. 3, 1989, pp. 425-428. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/40145317 . Accessed 13 July 2023.

Menon, Nirmala. “Peripheral Identities and Hybridity in Arun Joshi’s The City and the River” Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, vol. 62, no. 1, 2014, pp. 63-6. https://doi.org/10.1515/zaa-2014-0007.

Mukherjee, Meenakshi. The Twice Born Fiction: Themes and Techniques of the Indian Novel in English. Heinemann, 1971.

Naik, MK. A History of Indian English Literature. Sahitya Akademi, 1982.

Paranjape, Makarand. “Post-Independence Indian English Literature: Towards a New Literary History.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 33, no. 18, 1998, pp. 1049–56. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4406729 . Accessed 15 July 2023.

Prasad, Madhusudan. “Arun Joshi: The Novelist.” Indian Literature, vol. 24, no.4, 1981, pp. 103-114. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23330214 . Accessed 13 July 2023.

Randhawa MS. “Amar Chand Joshi (1908-1971).” Indian National Science Academy, https://www.insaindia.res.in/BM/BM15_9214.pdf .

Sudarshan, Aditya. “The strange case of Arun Joshi.” The Hindu, March 2, 2013, https://www.thehindu.com/books/books-authors/the-strange-case-of-arun-joshi/article4465223.ece .